- published: 01 Aug 2015
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The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by John Steinbeck and published in 1939. The book won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it was cited prominently when Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962.
Set during the Great Depression, the novel focuses on the Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, economic hardship, agricultural industry changes and bank foreclosures forcing tenant farmers out of work. Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they are trapped in the Dust Bowl, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands of other "Okies", they seek jobs, land, dignity, and a future.
The Grapes of Wrath is frequently read in American high school and college literature classes due to its historical context and enduring legacy. A celebrated Hollywood film version, starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford, was made in 1940.
The narrative begins just after Tom Joad is paroled from McAlester prison for homicide. On his return to his home near Sallisaw, Oklahoma, Tom meets former preacher Jim Casy, whom he remembers from his childhood, and the two travel together. When they arrive at Tom's childhood farm home, they find it deserted. Disconcerted and confused, Tom and Casy meet their old neighbor, Muley Graves, who tells them the family has gone to stay at Uncle John Joad's home nearby. Graves tells them that the banks have evicted all the farmers, but he refuses to leave the area.
John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American author of twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books, and five collections of short stories. He is widely known for the comic novels Tortilla Flat (1935) and Cannery Row (1945), the multi-generation epic East of Eden (1952), and the novellas Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Red Pony (1937). The Pulitzer Prize-winning The Grapes of Wrath (1939), widely attributed to be part of the American literary canon, is considered Steinbeck's masterpiece. In the first 75 years since it was published, it sold 14 million copies.
The winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature, he has been called "a giant of American letters". His works are widely read abroad and many of his works are considered classics of Western literature.
Most of Steinbeck's work is set in southern and central California, particularly in the Salinas Valley and the California Coast Ranges region. His works frequently explored the themes of fate and injustice, especially as applied to downtrodden or everyman protagonists.
Down below the deck, I couldn't feel the sand between my toes
It's not in the cards, even though it's in my heart
Takes the thought of me, drowning out some sorrow for a while
This family feels more like a sentence put on me
Turn up, close the door
Fill the room with sound, from wall to wall
Until there's no more room for sorrow
Turn up, waste away
From the stench and filth you can't escape
Only hiding for a while
Down below the tree, the means and the encouragement I need
I guess that I was wrong, I guess it's not so bad after all
One cold, winter day, the cornerstone falls out and rolls away
The walls fall in on me, is this what hell could end up to be?
Turn up, close the door
Fill the room with sound, from wall to wall
Until there's no more room for sorrow
Turn up, waste away
From the stench and filth you can't escape
Only hiding for a while
Here below the sky, the only guilt left now is in my mind
And each day away brings a little piece of mind my way
Turn up, close the door
Fill the room with sound, from wall to wall
Until there's no more room for sorrow
Turn up, waste away
From the stench and filth you can't escape